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Users Struggle to Use iPhone Features

posted by n1 on Monday June 05 2017, @05:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the ask-siri dept.

"exec" writes:

As Apple prepares to show off new features for the iPhone and other devices at its developer conference on Monday, the company is grappling with an uncomfortable issue: Many of its existing features are already too complicated for many users to figure out.

At last year’s conference, for example, Apple’s top software executive, Craig Federighi, demonstrated how users could order food, scribble doodles and send funny images known as stickers in chats on its Messages app. The idea was to make Messages, one of the most popular apps on the iPhone, into an all-purpose tool like China’s WeChat.

But the process of finding and installing other apps in Messages is so tricky that most users have no idea they can even do it, developers and analysts say.

Source: The New York Times

-- submitted from IRC

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Monday June 05 2017, @06:30PM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Monday June 05 2017, @06:30PM (#520889) Journal

    The Apple "ecosystem" has advantages over Android. Apple stuff will be compatible with Apple stuff and for some of us this is worth the price of admission. If that advantage means nothing to YOU, that's fine for you, but it in no way negates the very real advantage the Apple ecosystem offers. Some of us don't want to root our phones or fuck around with settings. We want stuff that works that we don't have to fuck with, and Apple does offer that. Just because this is not your preference doesn't mean there is not real value in this case. The needs and preferences of others are possibly different from yours. I ride a motorcycle that does wheelies at 80mph in 3rd gear and I love the bike. Could you make use of such a bike ? Maybe not, but that doesn't negate its value to me.

    The Android "ecosystem" is the same way. Google stuff works pretty flawlessly with other Google stuff; the difference is Google doesn't try so hard to prevent you from using non-Google stuff...which doesn't always work as well...which people like you then blame on Google for no apparent reason. The fact that they give you the ABILITY to use crap software that doesn't integrate doesn't mean you have to. I mean FUCK Google and all, but you buy an Android phone and you put in your Google account and everything just works. Mail, social, chat, cloud backup, app/media purchases, all of it integrates pretty seamlessly and automatically. They're a terrible company but they still do write decent software.

    And Apple stuff DOESN'T always "just work". My dad's got no real problems with his Galaxy, but my mom's iPhone is a constant source of tech support nightmares. Like when the Kindle app started displaying upside down for no apparent reason. Checked the iPhone orientation settings...no luck. Tried locking it in the correct orientation...nothing changed. Eventually I discovered that there were multiple independent screen rotation settings...and I'd been spending hours trying to configure the wrong one. What an amazing and intuitive interface! Ugh.

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